Florida and Arizona power through tough Sweet 16 games

Florida’s Scotty Wilbekin and Arizona’s Nick Johnson turned it on late after struggling for much of their Sweet 16 games.

Florida and Arizona have looked like the two best teams in college basketball for the last five months, but Thursday was not the best advertisement for the type of basketball they’re capable of playing.

And despite a couple of lackluster performances, the tournament’s top two seeds moved on to the Elite Eight.

Every tournament championship team has its one or two games where they struggle to survive, and the Gators and Wildcats may have gotten those out of the way with their Sweet 16 wins.

In Memphis, Florida snoozed through the first 30 minutes of its game against a hot UCLA team before overwhelming the Bruins down the stretch.

Scotty Wilbekin struggled to score, Patric Young and Casey Prather were in foul trouble all night, but none of that mattered. The Gators controlled a very good UCLA team for 40 minutes on their way to the Elite Eight.

Even when the Bruins cut the lead down to one in the second half, there was a feeling that Florida could run away with the game at any time.

And then they did.

After going 2-of-9 over the first 33 minutes of the game, Wilbekin flipped a switch. The SEC player-of-the-year scored eight out of Florida’s next 10 points to put the game on ice.

The Gators’ senior contingent of Wilbekin, Prather and Young combined for just 29 points. But when the seniors struggle, guys like Michael Frazier, Dorian Finney-Smith and Casey Hill have to step up.

Florida is a complete team and its senior leadership doesn’t hurt, either.

In Anaheim, Arizona pulled out a game it should not have won.

Top guard Nick Johnson, the Pac-12 player of the year, did not score his first field goal until there was 2:45 left in the second half. He had missed his first 10 shots.

He averages 16 points per game.

Center Kaleb Tarczewski played only 15 minutes – 13 fewer than usual – because of foul trouble. He had one rebound.

As a result, the Wildcats trailed from about 7:00 left in the first half until about 7:00 left in the second half. If the team had any sense of urgency, it was contained to coach Sean Miller’s face during timeouts. It never seeped out onto the floor.

This is supposed to be one of the lessons the tournament teaches: Those sorts of lulls – especially once you reach the Sweet 16 – are deadly. That level of effort is not enough. Poor luck, an off shooting night, two or three bad bounces … any of these are more than enough to send you home, no matter who you are.

Yet Arizona was there in the end, staying a few points ahead, easing away with heady play when San Diego State ratcheted the pressure and launched 3s.

Neither of these games were works of art, but Florida and Arizona got the job done. There’s no more pollsters or selection committees to impress — winning is the only thing that matters in March.